Understanding
by pouncepounce
Summary: This story is about an OC protagonist and other characters (OC and some of the Normandy crew) having to face a new "threat" together. Set post Reaper War. Shepard chose to destroy the Reapers. (Listed as complete, but DISCONTINUED.)
1. Chapter 1

**2194 CE**

A shadowy figure descended down a flight of stairs as skycars flew overhead, their loud and distinct sounds permeating throughout the air. Continuing forwards through a narrow alley sandwiched between Illium's towering architecture, the figure made an abrupt stop before making a swift entry into a restaurant. The interior was quite well lit, revealing the pale complexion of the male human looking to be in his mid twenties, the warmth being a welcome change to the coldness of the outside. The black suit he was wearing draped over his tall and lanky figure, the light shining upon his messy dark brown hair and glassy blue eyes. An asari greeted after a few moments had passed after his entry.

"Welcome to Skillia. Do you have a reservation for this evening?"

"Hugo Collins, reservation for two," he said in a distinctively sharp British accent, enough for it to register on the asari's translator.

"Ah yes, Mr Collins. Please follow me this way," said the asari after briefly checking her datapad, all the while maintaining her sophisticated looking smile, moving through the crowded restaurant with practiced elegance as she guided Hugo towards his table.

The two person table they arrived at was near the window, giving him a wide angle view of Illium. He took his seat as the asari pulled back his chair before leaving him after he told her that he will wait to order until the other person had arrived.

And so started the waiting…

After waiting for a long hour, Hugo admitted to himself that he had been stood up, which he came to terms with quite easily, almost alarmingly so. He asked for the degustation course for one and looked out into the distance through the window as he patiently waited for his food. He observed the people, carrying on with their daily lives, oblivious to their surroundings, the world around them, the vast rich sources of information they ignored as they carried out their "duties" and "responsibilities", distracting themselves until the time of their death arrived. Although, he thought to himself, he really wasn't that much different from them. At the end of the day he was merely attempting to occupy himself with interesting "activities". Boredom was his greatest enemy. An incoming call he received on his omnitool dragged him back to reality from his melancholy.

"Helia," Hugo acknowledged the asari on the other side of the call. Her expression was a combination of that of extreme stress and tiredness.

"Collins, you were right. The files were found on Boraksis' omnitool, but you need to come here right now."

"Does it mean you've already made the arrest? That's good to hear, but why must I-"

"No we haven't, and it's _very _urgent," the asari emphasised.

"Urgent? How so and why?"

"Dammit Collins, just hurry your ass up and get over here will you?"

"Alright, I'll be there as soon as possible," Collins replied after a slight pause, putting on a somber expression and abruptly ended the call.

His food was arriving just as he got up, but he was no longer interested in the food at all, his mind now completely fixated upon the matter at hand. After paying for his wholly uneaten meal, he rushed out of the restaurant and caught a taxi to the headquarters of Vexa Securities, one of the companies he had been hired by and an old guard within the private security industry. A krogan company, they separated themselves from the main krogan military during the Second Krogan Rebellion, as they deemed it was not in their best interests to participate in the conflict. Hugo didn't blame them; the krogans weren't happy when they had found out that they'd been fooled by the fake cure, and under the leadership of Urdnot Wreav it'd been one hell of a bloody war.

Vexa Securities was business minded, rare for a group of krogans. However, a large part of the public still didn't trust the krogans at Vexa Securities and they were struggling to stay afloat during the times of a harsh economic climate and a dwindling client base. It didn't help that an information leak from within the company had resulted in the bombardment of a secret research facility of another private military company, Dorpus Forces, resulting in its destruction along with the other unrelated areas which closely surrounded it. Recognised as a terrorist attack, both Vexa Securities and Dorpus Forces hired Collins to figure out who was responsible for the leak.

As he had deduced, it was Lucim Boraksis, a turian, one of the new employees at Vexa Securities, hired in order to improve their PR about being inclusive to all races. Before they had hired Boraksis, along with a salarian and an asari, the company had been exclusively krogan, a move considered to be smart at the time, which then evolved into a PR catastrophe. If the crime had been committed on the Citadel, now under delayed repair thanks to the Second Krogan Rebellion, or Sur'Kesh, the salarians being known for their unforgiving legal system, Boraksis would have received a death sentence, but on Illium, the legal system was loose with many loopholes, making it attractive for many business people. It almost encouraged white collar crime.

Instead of a death sentence, it was very likely that Boraksis would receive a lifetime sentence. The skycar moved through the night, smoothly weaving through the traffic as it headed towards a relatively isolated tall metallic tower with a large Vexa Securities logo embedded within the centre of its front face. The skycar parked on a balcony extending out of the 23rd floor, Hugo paying the driver and stepping out almost immediately after landing, hurrying towards the entrance. A visually agitated asari was waiting for him at the door.

"Is Boraksis dead?" he asked quickly as they entered the building together at a brisk pace.

"How do you know this stuff?" Helia replied, looking surprised, "Wait, never mind. It doesn't matter."

"Have people tampered with the scene?"

"No, I made sure of it. The chief of security, Janila, keeps insisting that it was a suicide, although I doubt it is. Can't blame her though; a murder within their HQ would be some really bad news for Vexa and they really can't afford any more negative PR in their current position. They'd lose a significant portion of their customer base."

Helia was a hardened veteran inspector of the Illium Police Force; her on-duty demeanour reflected it and her subordinates respected it. The two of them received anxious looks from the employees as they walked through the office, full of busy employees attending to their terminals. Among them was the salarian employee, undistracted and deep in his work, his eyes glued to his terminal display, not making eye contact with Hugo. His badge read 'Fonis Ols, Technology Advisor'. The asari employee was also in the room, looking relaxed, a heavy duty thermojacket and helmet laid out on her desk. She gave Hugo a nod of acknowledgement and a courteous smile, before returning to her work, typing quickly with her fingers, which he noticed was slightly pink. Her badge read 'Lenara Drios, Accounting'. Eventually the pair arrived at a secluded female bathroom. By the door, a krogan, who Hugo assumed to be Janila, was arguing with Evatora, an asari who was one of Helia's most trusted corporals. Hugo ignored them as he and Helia entered the bathroom.

"I'm telling you it's _just_ a suicide!" Janila shouted at Hugo as he walked passed, but the only reply she received was Helia's raised hand.

"Give us a few moments," Helia snapped at Janila with a voice of authority, despite the overwhelming size difference between the asari and the krogan.

Inside the bathroom was a female turian, Lucim Boraksis, lying dead, her still body slumped against a wall in a sitting position. There was a stab wound in the middle of her abdomen, blood pouring out. It was small, but just enough to be lethal, around which smaller cuts could be seen. A small pool of blood had formed around Boraksis' body, along with an even smaller, almost unnoticeable pool of a clear liquid. The door still open, Janila and Evatora were peering in from just outside. Hugo took out his analyser and activated it, its size and shape comparable to that of a pen with a matte black finish. A small rod extruded from one end, which Hugo dipped into the clear liquid while looking at his omnitool to read the transmitted data. He took a step back and looked up at the corpse again, a few tense moments passing as he analysed the situation with a calculating gaze. Helia could almost feel his intense concentration through the otherwise stoic room. Suddenly he opened his mouth to speak again.

"Inspector," Hugo stated in a matter of fact tone, "I do believe we have a homicide case."

"What? Don't be ridiculous! She committed suicide! Boraksis obviously figured out that she was about to be arrested and ended her own life before you lot could get to her!"

"Have there been any non-employees within this building today other than us three?" Hugo asked while motioning towards himself and the two other asari police officers.

"No," Janila replied quickly.

"Has anyone entered this building other than me and has anyone at all left this building in the past hour or so? Lock down the building and check the feeds," he commanded.

Obviously offended by Hugo's total disregard for her input, Janila's expression was that of extreme agitation, which only lasted for a brief moment before she started to go through the sped up security feeds, ordering her subordinates to do the same while she had the building locked down over comms. With only a handful of entry or exit points, the process was over within a few minutes of patient waiting and it was found that no one had entered or exited the building other than Hugo in the past hour.

"Good," Hugo said, "Now, get me the-," but he was interrupted by Janila before he could continue.

"Good? How is that good?"

"Oh please, surely you can't be _that_ dull, can you? It makes it easier for us to catch the killer. The killer is obviously one of the employees, still inside this building," Hugo replied mockingly.

"And _how_ is that good? _How_ is it good that another of our employees is a potential criminal?!"

After a moment of silence during which Hugo stared at Janila with a blank expression, he continued where he had left off, his voice steady, "Get me the asari employee and her belongings. I'd like to talk to her, away from her colleagues. You three may join us, of course."

Janila gave Hugo a look of overt shock at his lack of empathy, briefly frozen in place. The lock on her body released when Hugo said, "_Please_," with a smile of blindingly fake courtesy. Janila looked down and started walking toward the asari's booth, shaking her head slowly and widely.

"You think the asari did it?" asked Helia out of genuine curiosity.

"Yes, of course. Don't you?" replied a confused Hugo.

"Collins, haven't we discussed this before? People, _normal_ people, aren't as bright as you are. You have to explain your thoughts; you have to learn how to _communicate_," Helia said slowly, as if explaining to a toddler.

"Oh, right," and after a slight pause Hugo continued at a very fast pace, "Well, there is only one stab wound, clean and precise; just enough to kill the victim. The killer practised good self-control, something not seen very often in krogans, so that rules out most of the other employees. The killer made sure they were up close for the murder, using a stabbing weapon instead of a remote controlled explosive or a poison, implying that the motivation was personal. Boraksis, being a paranoid and anxious individual, only spent time at the work place or at home, which had been modified into something of a secluded hideout as she was so afraid of being targeted by various organisations that were against her information leaks. The killer would have to ask their colleagues, which would raise suspicion, or hack into the company database in order to find out Boaksis' address. However, the killer was not accustomed to digital information systems, so the only option was to murder Boraksis in the office. This rules out the salarian being the killer as, being the technology advisor, he would have been able to hack the company systems. I found a small pool of clear liquid near the body, which my analyser showed to be a high concentration Bizalite solution. Bizalite, named after the salarian Bizala who first synthesised it, greatly increases the durability of the ice made from the water it is dissolved in, while leaving the amount of energy required for the ice to melt back into a liquid state unchanged. It's often used in bars; ice that is resistant to kinetic impact but melts normally is useful when making cocktails. The killer tried to be clever and used a stabbing weapon made of ice, so that they couldn't be caught with the weapon if the building were to be locked down and all of the employees were checked for the belongings. They could just wait for the ice to melt before draining it at a sink. Also, the liquid is still well below room temperature, suggesting that it was frozen until no more than an hour ago. However, turian skin is course and very difficult to stab through, the small cuts surrounding the lethal wound indicating that the killer struggled to land a killing blow, scraping the victim's skin a few times before managing to kill her. The extra blows the killer was forced to deliver caused the weapon to shatter into multiple pieces, too small and spread too wide to clean completely in a timely and covert manner without the use of biotics. While the killer managed to clean most of the shattered ice, a small shard had been left behind unnoticed. A most critical error."

"Because the only non-krogan biotic in this building is the asari," Helia muttered thoughtfully.

"Exactly," Hugo confirmed approvingly.

"But why not just use an omniblade or something?" the inspector questioned, sounding a little unconvinced.

"Helia, she's an accountant. Do you really think she has the means or the skills for something like that?"

"I guess not. Well then, now that _that's_ been taken care of…" Helia mumbled while she was attempting to process all of the information she had just been inundated with. Hugo's thinking was fast, too fast for almost anyone other than himself, even the most capable salarians and his speech while explaining internal thoughts acted as a demonstration of his superhuman intelligence.

By the time Hugo had finished his explanation, Janila had collected the asari employee and led her, Hugo and the two police officers down a wide hall, no doubt constructed with krogan comfort in mind, until she stopped abruptly and opened a door to her left and stepped inside. As Hugo followed, he was met with a bare room with nothing but bright lighting and a small desk with two chairs.

"We usually use this as-" but this time it was Hugo who interrupted Janila.

"An interview room. Just what I wanted. Take a seat," he asked the asari employee as he gestured towards one of the empty chairs, taking his place in the one opposite. "So, Lenara Drios," the human started as the asari took her seat, suddenly pausing for a moment of consideration before continuing, "Actually, never mind. Interrogation is unnecessary. It's unfortunate that your skin condition gave you away. Check her bag, Janila. There should be a portable freezer inside."

Janila did as asked and found a small freezer in the shape of a rectangular prism with a metallic silver outer casing within Drios' bag. Despite her dislike towards Hugo, she could not help but be astonished at his abilities. The asari was frozen in her seat, figuratively. Hugo showed a subtle smirk as he placed his elbows on the table, leaning forward and resting his head in his open palms.

"You have Divius disease, your heavy jacket and helmet gave it away. It's a little cold tonight, but not _that_ cold, but with a condition that causes your skin to change colour when exposed to anything below around 276 kelvin it makes sense. The inside of your right hand is a clear salmon colour. You killed Boraksis because you figured that she would be arrested soon and would be given a life sentence, but _you_ wanted an execution. Her information leak led to your daughter's death after all."

Helia interrupted Hugo, noticing an inconsistency between the data she had about Drios and what the human was claiming, "You sure about that Collins? Doesn't say anything about children on Drios' records."

"Of course, she was an Ardat-Yakshi, something Drios obviously wanted to keep hidden, so she kept her daughter in a monastery to live in isolation and kept her existence hidden. If her daughter's been forgotten by Illium, she must have gone off the radar at least several hundred years ago. Coincidentally, there was a small and mostly off the books monastery near Dorpus Forces' secret research facility that was destroyed, which was a little lax about visitor regulations than the other institutions. The monastery was caught within the blast radius caused by the information leak and everyone within was killed. However, when the monastery still existed, all you needed to do to visit a relative inside was wear three rings on your left index finger, both a symbol of control but also a practical implementation of wearable biotic amplifier technology, as a last resort if an Ardat-Yakshi were to become out of control. However, the interaction of the three rings and the wearer's biotics leaves the skin slightly darker where the rings have touched it."

"Oh come on you've got to be –," but before Janila could finish her exclamation of disbelief, upon her own observation she realised that Drios did indeed have three ring shaped patches of darker skin on her left index finger, although they were extremely light and subtle.

"Sometimes I wonder if you krogans really do have sharper senses than us humans," Hugo chimed in with glee, while Janila was lost in her own astonishment for a few moments.

Meanwhile, Lenara remained staring at Hugo, frozen from shock at his inhuman abilities. His eyes were glassy and analytical, seemingly able to see through anything and everything.

Leaning in towards Lenara, the human spoke with a soft voice, almost at a whisper, "Why not just wear a pair of gloves? You must have been wearing some before you entered the building with a condition like yours. I very much doubt that you simply forgot such an important component of an otherwise passable plan. There's something I'm missing, isn't there?"

At that moment, Lenara's omnitool lit up, opening up the communications module, a distorted voice emanating through the small room, "Very well done Collins. That's right, you _are_ missing something, and that something is me. Now, everyone except for Hugo Collins, leave the room and do not enter or attempt to record the following conversation. The building has been rigged with explosives." The voice was flat and multi-layered, but not like that of a turian, obviously synthesised to preserve anonymity and did not waver as it announced the significant threat almost casually. The occupants of the room froze, Helia looking to Hugo, who gave her a calm nod. The inspector signaled the others to leave, forcing Janila to comply with a fierce stare when she was about to open her mouth to retort. When it was only Hugo and Lenara remaining in the room, the omnitool rendered the asari unconscious with an overload. The human merely flinched slightly from surprise as it occurred, quickly regaining his composure.

The voice continued, "It was simple, I threatened to kill Drios' partner whom she had had her daughter with and who currently lives off world, and she obeyed my every command. I _ordered_ her to keep the gloves off."

"Why?" Hugo asked sharply, now intensely curious about the voice's intentions and identity.

"To evaluate your capabilities, Collins. Conveniently, you were already involved with the situation between Vexa Securities and Dorpus Forces. All that needed to be done was to create a puzzle for you to solve, to test your abilities. Needless to say, you have passed."

"Now what? I leapt through all of the hoops you'd set out for me."

"I can't give you all of the details Collins, not until we meet personally. Which brings me to your invitation to –,"

"Sur'Kesh, STG headquarters. After the Reapers I thought the galaxy would be safe from nasty _mystery surprises_ for a while." Hugo cut in nonchalantly, followed by a moment of silence, indicating that the voice had been caught by surprise and confusion as to how that had been deduced, prompting him to continue, "If this was a threat assessment by an enemy capable of subtle manipulation of this level, they would have _actually _rigged the building with explosives so that I may be terminated when I passed the test. However, you are giving me an invitation, implying that you are seeking to utilise my abilities and that you are probably a part of the military, some sort of black ops cell perhaps. I assume the STG from the displayed manipulation and data collection capabilities and also your speech pattern suggests salarian. Pitch and tone modification does not mask pace and tempo. Now, STG is infamous for taking the 'ends justifies the means' approach to operations, but what with the genophage and the reaper conflict and so on, there must be some internal problems arising stemming from ethical dilemmas. Also during these sensitive and fragile times, not even the STG would risk too much politically, only just enough, suggesting that the creators of this plan justified that according to the laws of the location at which they are based at, Boraksis would have been given the death sentence, and decided to consider the plan as a sort of execution for the criminal. The only legal systems that would have given Boraksis the death sentence are that of the Citadel, currently uninhabitable, and Sur'Kesh. Furthermore, the STG philosophy is to strike and neutralise a threat before a battle begins. This combined with the fact that you require my abilities and the level of attempted secrecy implies that you, or _we_, are dealing with an unpredictable and mostly unknown threat that could cause a panic or add to the chaos if found out by the public."

After taking a breath, Hugo finished, "Thanks for the second puzzle, I was starting to get _bored_."

After a few brief moments and the distorted voice was the first to speak again. "We hope to see you shortly Collins," and the call ended as abruptly as it had started.


	2. Chapter 2

Hugo peered outside through a window of the shuttle and saw that they were almost arriving at their destination, the STG headquarters. STG operatives had picked him up off of Illium, transporting him on a first class private stealth ship to the salarian home world, Sur'Kesh. They had not answered any of Hugo's questions on the way and disabled his omnitool, keeping him in the dark as much as they could.

As the shuttle hovered to a gentle stop over the landing pad, Hugo could see the STG base's advanced and efficient architecture, the technology developed here being decades ahead of what the other races had available to them. He also saw three salarians approaching the shuttle door in a triangular formation, the trio wearing standard STG armour and eyes of caution.

Opening the door, the most forward salarian was the first to speak, "Collins, glad to have you here. We will be escorting you today. Please, follow closely."

And with that, the salarian officer turned a half revolution on his heels and headed back towards the base at a brisk pace, Hugo walking right behind him. The two other officers waited until Hugo was ahead of them before following, so that they could surround him as they moved through the base. Hugo wasn't known as a dangerous criminal, but he wasn't exactly a law abiding citizen. He was somewhere in between, which seemed to be a commonality he shared with STG itself and other individuals the organization frequently did business with. As such, they were used to dealing with grey area types and new how to handle them. Hugo and the three officers surrounding him, still maintaining their triangular formation, moved through the base quickly, passing by different cells and divisions as he saw them developing several different new technologies, ranging from new armours to miniature communicators. After a brisk three minute walk through the base, they had arrived at a door, where the most forward salarian was once again the one to open it.

As they walked through the door, Hugo saw a small but well lit room. No windows, only some terminals and an office desk at which sat a hooded salarian, most probably a female, who seemed to be anticipating his arrival.

"Good day, Collins," the hooded salarian spoke, her voice confirming Hugo's assumption about her sex, "I am Admiral Luxa Paesin. It is a _pleasure_ to meet you."

"The pleasure is mine, admiral."

"Your journey was sufficiently comfortable, I hope?"

"It was indeed, almost too comfortable, even for a non-military _civilian_ like me. Enough for you to get on my good side, which I assume was your intention," Hugo replied, cracking a forced smile of false sincerity.

"Ah, I'm glad to have you Hugo. Well, I hope to not lose you any time soon, so let us move onto business. I wouldn't want you to become disinterested from all of these dull pleasantries," Paesin progressed the conversation, matching Hugo's smile with one of her own, although hers looked more authentic and friendly than the human's, no doubt honed through years of putting on the same expression when trying to make new allies.

"Of course. I hope to not be disappointed. These are turbulent times, which have given rise to many interesting situations I could be attending to right now."

"Well, Collins, as you are most probably aware, the quarians had been resettling on Rannoch for a few years now, relying on a supercomputer to provide them with an optimised and efficient lifestyle."

"Yes, I am aware. I'd been surprised upon hearing of the supercomputer initially, but it really only made sense. Integration of technology within a society's infrastructure is inevitable if they are to continue advancing and evolving past a certain point."

"As it turns out, it is also as inevitable for a krogan to strike in blind rage."

"Debateable," Hugo cut in, before letting Paesin continue.

"The quarians on Rannoch were recently attacked by the remaining krogan forces. It wasn't all of the krogan army, but it was more than enough to decimate the quarians. There are no survivors on record, rendering the quarians practically extinct," the hooded salarian finished grimly.

"A most unfortunate conclusion, admiral. Perhaps the krogans have been underestimated. Even neutered, they are a force to be reckoned with. Although there wouldn't really be much benefit from saving the quarians, when news of the racial genocide reaches the public, there will naturally be a stir of chaos, something that the _higher ups_ must surely want to avoid," Hugo paused for a moment before continuing, "However, the quarians weren't given any military aid, I assume, since you would have told me if they had. The military costs of helping the quarians were high enough that you let them be wiped out. Risky play, admiral."

"We couldn't afford to send any aid," Paesin touted calmly, but Hugo noticed a slight defensiveness in her tone.

"I didn't realise that the salarian military was _that_ ruined. Although I did have an idea since you were asking for _my_ help, of all people, and you even went through all that trouble to get it."

"Yes, Collins, you're right," Paesin gave a short sigh and lowered her eyes, "We do need your help."

The hooded salarian raised her gaze to match his before continuing, "Several of our scientists went rogue, developing a cure for the genophage on their own. They insisted that the Second Krogan Rebellion wouldn't have occurred if we'd given them a chance at their own destiny. The rest of us thought that presenting a cure now would only worsen the situation regardless, and tried to wrap the project up with red tape. Unfortunately, they ran off and recently _actually succeeded_."

"What timing. Have you found the location of their lab?"

"We did, but by the time we'd arrived, the facilities had been raided. The scientists were found dead and the data was gone, along with the cure."

"So you want me to track down the cure?"

"Exactly. It could have been some batarian raiders who stumbled across some fancy looking research facility and decided to plunder it. The raiders might have decided to destroy the data after failing to decrypt it, just as an act of vandalism. However, one of our officers had managed to crack into the rogue facility's terminals and it turns out they'd finished developing the cure a mere day before they were raided. Could be coincidence, but I doubt the galaxy is being that boring. It _never_ is."

Hugo watched Paesin grimace for a few moments, as he himself did the same as he thought about how dull the world would be if the galaxy really _were that boring_.

"So, do you accept this job? We will be paying you appropriately."

It was never about the money for Hugo, but at times it helped to have a substantial reserve. In his line of 'work', there were officials to bribe, spies to hire.

"Well, I don't have much of a choice, do I?" Hugo asked nonchalantly, glancing over at the three fully armed STG operatives still standing behind him. The matter of the genophage cure had to be handled carefully and subtly, with the utmost secrecy for as long as possible, and releasing someone not on their side after telling them about it was something that could not be done. Bribery and threats would be too risky. Execution would be the only reliable and _permanent_ solution to preventing a potentially catastrophic information leak.

"Choice," the hooded salarian gave a genuine but weak laugh in reminiscence and broke her formal expression to reveal a faint tiredness, "From what I've learned, Collins, when it comes to some choices, the ones that _really_ matter, we don't really have any options at all except one. Those more powerful than us dictate what that one option is."

Paesin's expression returned to that of a military professional, looking stern with eyes wide open, placing her gaze upon Hugo for a moment as he considered what she had just told him.

_Of course he was going to take the damn job, this was getting very interesting. No need to show me who has more power here, inside this base. _Hugo thought to himself before opening his mouth, "Some STG veteran wisdom?"

"Something like that, yes."

* * *

They were now on an STG ship on their way to the rogue salarian research station. The ship was small, with just enough space to hold ten people at maximum capacity. Sitting on the captain's chair located at the centre of the CIC, Hugo was going through the data he had been given on his omnitool. He wasn't a soldier and he definitely wasn't a captain, but the STG had put him in charge, with great reluctance. Being in charge of the crew and the mission was the condition that Hugo gave to Paesin, one the salarian admiral could have easily denied, but she knew that he would work better not having to take orders. A captain to keep Hugo tamed would only hinder his abilities.

Paesin had assigned three STG members to Hugo's crew, one of which was First Lieutenant Vurwin Els, a male STG officer with enough years of experience to be recognised as a seasoned soldier by his superiors.

The second was Flight Lieutenant Estum Rou, a female pilot, who looked timid at first glance. However, as soon as she was at the cockpit and in her pilot's chair, she naturally radiated confidence in her abilities, a trait she seemed to share with many other military pilots. She also acted as the medical officer.

The last of the assigned soldiers was Gunnery Chief Ferkal Tix, who, upon first sight, Hugo could tell was a very dangerous individual. Ferkal had light brown skin and damaged horns; the similar way in which both seemed to be burned off suggested they were damaged from the same incident. He could see Ferkal's eyes had fierce focus with a glint of lethal aggression. The battered and worn face and hands of the salarian indicated a long military career so far; longer than Vurwin, who was a higher rank than Ferkal, which Hugo found strange.

Two days passed while in transit to the research facility, Hugo in near constant thought about the various probable scenarios which could have occurred. In between his thoughts he managed to slip in a few hours of sleep. Hugo never needed much sleep; he could function at full capacity on a mere one hour of rest every night. The STG soldiers were astonished when they first found out about Hugo's sleep routine as they had never met a human who could function while maintaining a schedule on par with that of a salarian in terms of time dedicated to rest.

The ship Hugo had been given was the _Alusa_, one of a sleek and streamlined design with white plating. Vurwin had given the human a tour of the ship, which had two floors; the top floor was the CIC with the cockpit at the front. The captain's chair at the centre of the CIC looked more like a throne, existing on a raised platform with two square armrests on either side of the chair which had terminals and other integrated tools for quick access while one was seated. The chair had a metallic finish, like the rest of the ship interior, but the inside and the armrests were covered with high quality leather. The cockpit contained only one chair, the pilot's, which was surrounded by many different terminals that Estum effortlessly used to fly them safely and comfortably through the dark void for long hours.

The lower floor contained the cargo hold with crew quarters that could be found around it. The cargo hold could be used as other facilities when needed through the use of foldable walls and hidden storage. Although the Alusa was a small ship and therefore could dock and land directly at most areas, a shuttle was also kept in the cargo hold. The UD-21 Orhol was a state of the art shuttle fitted with various useful features and tools, with white plating similar to that of the Alusa itself.

They were about to arrive at the raided research facility and Hugo gathered Vurwin and Ferkal, the shore party, at the cargo hold. Hugo wasn't military, so there was no official briefing, but he still wanted to make sure that every member of the team was on the same page.

"So, we all know what's going to happen?" Hugo asked the two salarians.

"Get in, investigate the facilities to see what happened and evaluate our options," Vurwin, the sharp and useful lieutenant, replied quickly.

"Sounds a bit boring, honestly," Ferkal muttered under his breath, sounding a little disappointed.

"How so?" the human asked, genuinely curious as to how the gunnery chief could possibly find a search for a missing genophage cure boring.

"Not much for me to do, not yet anyways."

"You are allowed to conduct your own observations, Ferkal," Hugo informed, referring to the salarian by his first name. Ferkal had insisted that they called each other using their given names; apparently it was his 'thing' to do so.

"That's _not_ what I mean, Hugo," the short salarian replied, shaking his head, "It's fine, forget it."

"Remember, Ferkal, it's always better for us to face _less_ combat scenarios, not more. Perhaps you've forgotten the STG philosophy?" Vurwin questioned testily.

Hugo was aware of what Vurwin was talking about; the STG and the salarian military in general valued maximising results from minimal input. They would get as much out of every single resource as possible. Efficiency was celebrated, meaningless and avoidable combat was shunned.

"I said _forget it_, Vurwin," Ferkal barked aggressively without any real malice.

"Remember what Paesin told you. Control. Your. Self," Vurwin emphasised the last three words, pausing briefly in between.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I heard you."

Vurwin was giving a playful smirk, knowing this was as much of a resignation he was going to get out of Ferkal.

As the exchange between the two salarians finished, Hugo tapped his omnitool to convert the cargo hold into an armoury. A bench and two weapon racks appeared and rose from the ground, as markings indicated they would, around the three men. Each racked contained various different weapons, ranging from small handguns to advanced grenade launchers.

"I take it you know how to handle a weapon?" inquired Vurwin.

"I do," Hugo gave a short answer and added nothing more. He felt that telling Vurwin that he had no official training and that everything he knew had been learned during his adolescent years spent on Omega would not end well.

Hugo picked up an M-6 Carnifex pistol from one of the weapons racks and loaded it with a fresh new thermal clip, taking some spares just in case they got caught up in some trouble.

* * *

Hugo and the STG officers were walking through the research facility, a large metallic structure floating in space, at a brisk pace; it had not been interfered with since it was raided, as requested by Admiral Paesin, other than confirming that the genophage cure data, contained in an encrypted drive, was taken. One shuttle of STG officers guarded the abandoned facility as they orbited around the structure, which Estum joined with the Alusa.

The lab was stoic and lifeless; the only sounds which could be heard were that of the three conducting their investigation. The interior was still well lit and no structural damage seemed to have been inflicted by the raiders. Eventually they arrived at a room containing the four corpses of the rogue researchers, which had at this point decomposed a fair amount; although there was not much visible change from afar, Hugo could notice the smell and tactile softness of rotting flesh. However, none of this fazed any of them. Hugo was intrigued as he observed each dead body and the soldiers had been used to death at that point in their military careers.

"Only one gunshot wound to the head in each corpse," Hugo muttered, remembering what Helia had told him about the need to communicate, "This makes batarian pirates an unlikely suspect. They're famous for their overkill."

He was part of a team now. In fact, it was _his _team. It made him feel a strange sense of duty he had never felt before.

"I agree, Collins. If this were their work, there would also be significant structural damage," added Vurwin.

"Highly inefficient. A more subtle method of infiltration was considered to be more favourable," the human paused for a moment, "The researchers were armed and ready for anything, characteristic for STG, but their weapons are still holstered, which means they were killed before they could react. If the intruders were able to bypass security of this level and enter the facilities unnoticed, it suggests they were capable in that field and that the encryption on the data drive may be cracked sooner than expected. Only one shot to the head for each kill, no unnecessary damage and the bypass of advanced security systems; indicative of a very efficiency minded nature."

Hugo approached one of the four terminals in the square shaped room, one terminal for each side.

"Hopefully there is still some sort of a trace left behind," the human said under his breath while activating the terminal.

After a few moments, Hugo had found that data had been copied from the terminal, "This terminal wasn't cleaned properly; there are still traces of a copy command being used, at the estimated time of the raid, on all of the data contained within. Surprisingly sloppy for a group capable of getting past this facility's security."

"Nerves, maybe? Could've been a bunch of spineless new guys who'd never seen any real fighting before," suggested Ferkal.

"The precision headshots suggest otherwise. Perhaps there was infighting or a disagreement within the group; the kills had occurred before the researchers could react, so there wouldn't have been time to discuss if murdering them was necessary."

Hugo moved through the other three terminals in a counter clockwise direction around the room, repeating the same process and finding that the data had been copied from those terminals as well.

"The recorded times that the copy command was issued for each terminal are at intervals of around 30 seconds between each of the four. From the amount of data and the high grade technology of each terminal, I'd say that the copy process would take approximately 20 seconds. If they were a group, it suggests that they waited for the copy process on one of the terminals to finish before starting the process on another; a stark contrast to the efficiency at which the other actions during the raid had been handled. It may have been done randomly but the consistent time intervals between each copy command suggest otherwise."

"Maybe there was only one tech expert in the group?" suggested Vurwin.

Hugo shook his head, "These are standard terminals. Even if there was only one tech expert in the group, if they were capable of bypassing the security systems, it would have been very easy to use a program which copied and extracted data, pre-written before the raid, for every member of the team to use simultaneously on each terminal."

Hugo turned to look at Vurwin and Ferkal, who were also coming to the same realisation as the human explained his thinking.

"So you're saying that it's just _one_ badass son of a bitch who did all this?" Ferkal asked rhetorically in disbelief, "One person killed four _trained STG_ officers alone before they could even get their weapons out?" However, upon consideration, he could probably do it as well; except he'd have blown a whole through the wall instead of bothering to deal with all of that tech stuff.

"Yes, most likely a turian."

Vurwin crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes, which Hugo could see through the salarian's clear visor, "Why?"

"The way the bodies landed after being shot and the entry and exit wounds suggest that the killer was standing inside the room when shooting at the researchers. Since they didn't have time to react, it's safe to assume that the killer shot them all from the same position," Hugo strode over and stood in front of the door, "Here."

As Vurwin looked around the room again, he noticed something new; the four corpses were all lying on the ground with their feet pointed towards where Hugo was currently standing.

"The entry and exit wounds suggest that the killer was quite tall and that the firearm was powerful enough for a shot to the head to knock the entire body in the projectile's direction of travel," Hugo paused as he watched Vurwin move over to one of the corpses to make his own observations before continuing, "Salarians, krogans and turians are the three tallest races. However, the average salarian height is quite a bit lesser than my estimation of the killer's height. As you two are probably aware, salarian genetic variation is very limited in terms of physique; it is incredibly rare, on the magnitude of one in several billion, for a salarian to physically vary this much from average values, which makes it incredibly unlikely that the killer is of that race. Furthermore, from my experience, krogans would always choose the loud, gaudy kills over the quieter methods, especially if they are oversized, ruling them out as a race that the killer could belong to. Which makes a tall turian the most likely suspect; although I do not completely rule out a giant stealthy krogan, as that assumption is merely based on my experience and I haven't encountered enough members of the race to completely rule out the possibility."

As Hugo finished, Vurwin was moving from corpse to corpse, observing the wounds, while processing and making sense of Hugo's thinking that he had just heard. Even for Vurwin, a seasoned STG officer often commended by his superiors for his swift and clear thinking, Hugo was on another level; it was a humbling experience for the salarian lieutenant.

"You're too smart, Hugo, even for us," muttered Ferkal, "You're probably the most intelligent human in the galaxy."

Hugo turned to face Ferkal, a grin spreading across his face, "Flattering, but I know for sure that is not the case. Although I base that off of my own experience as well, _this_ I know as a certainty."

"It couldn't have been an order given out from the turian military. No one would risk galactic instability with a move like this during these times, not even them," Vurwin thought aloud.

"Indeed. If they did found out about this station, they would have taken a more diplomatic route and worked _with_ salarians, instead of _this,_" Hugo voiced his agreement, "The next question is; where is the killer now?"

The three of them were standing in silent thought, the two salarians almost waiting in anticipation for the genius human to open up access to his wellspring of thought once again, when Vurwin straightened up and placed a finger at the side of this head, where the communications implant had been placed. His expression turned extremely sour.

"Prepare for combat but do _not_ fire without-," the salarian's command for a hold fire was cut off by an explosive noise that echoed across the facility.

Hugo felt a surge of heat radiate across the room along with the deafening sound, the wall across him showing signs of strain. Recognising it as the signs of an incoming burst of explosive energy, Hugo started to raise his arms from his sides and crouch; although he was wearing a shield under his suit, his face was uncovered and it would be beneficial to minimise the surface area against the oncoming explosion and any shrapnel. Raising his arms from his sides to the front of his face would take approximately a quarter of a second while crouching would take approximately half a second. Upon seeing that the wall was breaking apart and that pieces of it were starting to fly towards him, he estimated that the full force of the explosion would reach him in approximately a little over a half a second. Meanwhile, the two salarians seemed to just be registering and processing the sound they were hearing, still oblivious to the breaking wall; they had not yet made any efforts to minimize damage.

The human could see sharp pieces of the wall, acting as shrapnel, flying at him as he raised his shielded arms up in front of his face and continued to bend his knees. The explosive force was now almost arriving at his position, the lowering motion almost complete to form a crouch. The explosive force full of bursting heat collided against his arms and then his chest. He felt the force act against that which was being exerted by his leg muscles as they were overcome, as it lifted the human off of the floor. As he lost his footing, Hugo felt himself being flung backwards towards the opposite wall, managing to catch a glimpse of the salarians being pushed back very harshly.

Going from his estimation of the room size as he entered it, he estimated that it would take another quarter of a second for him to reach the wall he was being pushed towards. It would approximately take a fifth of a second for him to move his arms from in front of his face to the back of the head and neck. As he continued to move his arm past his face and towards the top of his head, he noticed shrapnel fly over him, that which would have hit him if he had not managed to crouch. Considering it a small victory in itself, but realising that it was too early to celebrate when he noticed that the wall was still fast approaching, Hugo continued to move his arms past the top of the head to the back, where he stopped one arm and placed the other to cover the neck. He felt the heat sear against his skin, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make in order to prevent a significantly more severe injury.

As the human hit the opposite wall, he felt most of the impact being absorbed by the shields in his arm, while the heat of the explosion and kinetic impacts from the shrapnel had been absorbed by those in his chest. The shields broke as Hugo crashed onto the floor, hearing the sound of nearby salarian bodies experiencing the same force from a standing position. If it were not for their full body armour, which included a helmet, the damage would have been catastrophic, but Hugo assumed that they were fine. The human quickly assessed his own injuries; bruised left forearm, slight burns on face, blurred vision and muscle strain in right leg. He heard a screaming voice.

"A krogan cruiser open fired at us!" Vurwin's voice echoed through the room over the sound of more explosions occurring all over the research facility.

The three soldiers slowly rose to their feet as the room shook and trembled under the fire power of the attacking ship.

"Shore party, come in," Hugo heard the Alusa's pilot over his communicator, the anxiety in her voice quite discernible.

"Estum, requesting extraction!" Ferkal howled, "Docking bay 2!"

"Roger. ETA less than a minute."

"Let's move!" Vurwin shouted as he lead the party out of the room, the other two closely following suit.

As they left the room, Hugo noticed a box of a full set of _male human_ armour being blown out of the armoury lying on the ground, the original purpose of which puzzled him. The amour was blue, with an Alliance logo on the chest and showed heavy signs of wear, making the situation slightly more complicated, Hugo noted. However, that did not matter in his current predicament.

Stopping to kneel down and open the box, he raised his head to look at the two salarians who had noticed his abrupt halt.

"Wearing a suit won't help you if you're stuck here!" Ferkal yelled as Hugo was already putting on pieces of the armour as they latched onto the magnetic nodes on his shield system after going through in head the most optimal method of going about the task and working with blindingly fast efficiency.

"I'll need it! Go! I'll be right behind you!"

"Collins, I won't-," Vurwin shouted back, but he was interrupted.

"Yes, you _will_!"

The human and the salarian looked into each other's eyes, analysing each other for a moment, before Vurwin gave Hugo a nod of acknowledgement. The lieutenant started to run again as he convinced the gunnery chief to do the same, who swore under his breath before complying.

The salarian duo was frantically running across the facility towards the nearest exit as the entire structure was failing, walls blowing apart and ripped live wires dancing around dangerously, when they heard their pilot's voice over the comms again.

"A little problem, lieutenant."

"What?" questioned Vurwin, continuing to lead the sprint towards the docking bay as the airlock came into vision when he turned a corner.

He also saw the answer to his question through a nearby window; the now completely obliterated bay, blown off of the main body of the structure, floating away into the distance.

"The platform, it's-," the pilot sounded desparate.

"No time! Get in as close as you can!"

"Roger!"

They were almost at the airlock when Vurwin tapped his omnitool a few times, opening both doors simultaneously. The two salarians managed to jump towards the ship before being sucked out into the void, their momentum towards the ship sufficient to get them across to it. As they landed at the Alusa's open airlock, Ferkal saw Hugo being flung towards them in the Alliance amour he had successfully equipped.

For a split second which felt to be a much longer time for Hugo, he looked towards the stars and the vast expanses between them, admiring the galaxy in all of its intrinsic beauty; both full and empty, eternal and limited, caring and harsh. No matter what happened, the laws of the universe would continue to work as it always had; the cosmos indifferent to the squabbles amongst its inhabitants. This line of thinking, which had always kept Hugo calm and grounded, was also the reason his boredom made him restless; his nihilistic perspective of the universe made him free to do whatever he wanted, but it also meant that nothing stopped him from ending his own life when he was bored, something he had once seriously considered before moving to Omega, which opened his eyes to the many ways boredom could be dealt with.

As Hugo landed in the airlock where the two salarians waited, the door to open space closed behind him and the decontamination and pressure normalisation process was initiated. The door to the ship interior opened once the standard procedures were completed, Hugo being the first to step out of the airlock.

"Strap in people, this one might be rough," Estum called back from the cockpit, voice raised but full of confidence.

The three headed to their respective seats; Hugo walked up the platform towards the captain's chair as Vurwin and Ferkal walked to the port and starboard sides respectively, where chairs awaited each of them. As Hugo took his seat, a press of the button on his left armrest caused straps to appear from the top of the chair on both sides of his head to come down and automatically secure him in place, latching on at the bottom of the seat at the opposite side, the two straps forming a cross across the human's chest.

Under the trained hands of Estum Rou, one of the finest pilots in STG, the Alusa swerved and dodged around the flying debris while avoiding oncoming fire from the krogan cruiser, gaining distance against its far less nimble attacker. The safety straps kept the three other crewmembers safely in their seats as they watched on from the CIC. Hugo could see Ferkal flinching and looking quite uncomfortable, more so than Vurwin and himself. Once they had cleared the debris field, Estum punched in coordinates and FTL jumped out of the cruiser's range.

As they entered the calm of FTL travel, tension slowly eased from the room.

"Good work, flight lieutenant," Hugo commended, using the buttons on his armchair to release the safety straps.

"Thank you, Collins," Estum replied shyly while continuing to make minor adjustments on the terminals.

"Well that took me by surprise; couldn't do much with these," Ferkal muttered while pointing to the assault rifle holstered on his back; he was sitting in his seat a little rigidly with the safety straps still keeping him in place.

"Lucky for you that human armour was left behind for some reason, Collins," Vurwin said after giving a short sigh of relief.

"You would've had a hard time getting back to the ship, otherwise," Ferkal added.

"Very lucky indeed," Hugo concurred, absent-mindedly. The human was already deep in his thoughts; why were the krogans there, why was there a full set of used Alliance armour inside of a rogue STG facility, who was the Turian and how were they related? The genius thought about all of the different possibilities, casting aside the easy and cheap answer of coincidence. He truly did agree with Admiral Paesin; the galaxy was hardly ever that boring.


	3. Chapter 3

**Third chapter is here. Please review. Like it? Hate it? Any sort of feedback is better than nothing!**

* * *

The Alusa was cruising through open space at FTL, the surrounding cosmic bodies reduced to mere blurs as Estum looked on from the cockpit. Hugo was in the captain's chair, flicking through information on his omnitool with his usual blank expression; it was the one he wore almost constantly. The human had many questions after the explosive ending to the investigation that he had conducted at the research facility. His thoughts were interrupted when his omnitool notified him of an incoming comms request from an unidentified caller.

"Fil, anything you can tell me about the caller?" Hugo asked the on board VI.

"Caller location cannot be found. Ping delay has been artificially masked; distance to caller cannot be calculated either. Caller ID protected using measures beyond my cyber warfare capabilities," the synthetic voice replied.

"Alright. Open the call."

The call started and a deep, masked voice echoed through the room, "Hugo Collins."

The voice was unmistakeable, sounding fierce, threatening and seemingly omniscient.

"Shadow Broker," Hugo returned the greeting.

"It has come to my attention that you are investigating the disappearance of the genophage cure."

"You are correct."

"You have been given minimal resources to complete the task at hand. I will be providing resources to assist you in your mission."

"All-out war with the cured krogans wouldn't be too bad for business, surely? Information plays a great role in conflicts."

"True, but if the krogans win, my services may be deemed redundant forever in a galaxy dominated by hulking beasts drowned by their own rage."

"So, what assistance will you provide?" Hugo inquired, quickly accepting the Broker's offer. He had dealt with the Broker in the past on a handful of occasions and had learnt that it was best to stay cautious. However, the Shadow Broker was very powerful and capable, help from the likes of which Hugo simply could not decline. The human was sure that it was the real Broker; the information of the newly formulated genophage cure had been kept as a top secret by the STG. The level of secrecy indicated that there were very few individuals who knew of the cure; some high ranking STG officers, Hugo himself and his STG crew and the one they were trying to catch. Hugo found it unlikely that the Shadow Broker was any of them, which convinced him that it was not an imposter who was contacting them. Although the possibility of a trap was risky, the potential benefits the information broker could provide outweighed the costs.

"I will provide a variety of resources, including one of my most trusted and capable agents. You will meet him on Omega, where you will head immediately," the Broker spoke as if the human had no say in the matter, which was probably indeed the case.

"Rou, plot a course for Omega," Hugo called over to the salarian sitting in the cockpit who had already finished finding the fastest possible route to the space station.

"Estimated time of arrival is 50 hours, Collins," the pilot called back to the human.

"Well, we will be seeing your agent in a little over two standard days."

"Very well. Shadow Broker out."

The transmission ended abruptly and silence filled the room, other than the quiet hum of the Alusa, as Hugo noticed that Vurwin was looking tense; the salarian was aware of the risks involved in dealing with the Broker and he had not yet come to completely trust Hugo's judgement. Although the human had proven to be extremely capable, he was not even a part of any military and by definition was closer to a mercenary, except that Hugo was closer to hired _brains_ than hired muscle. Still, Admiral Paesin, someone who Vurwin had respected greatly throughout his career, had trusted the 'grey area' human with completing the mission, so he decided to do the same, but that did not stop the salarian from being unsure about some of Hugo's decisions, his STG instincts kicking in. The lieutenant had become proficient at hiding his emotions and feelings, but Hugo was an expert at reading people; a skill he had learned and mastered over the years. He had found that people were just like any other object and could be broken down and analysed; small pieces such as various micro-expressions and body language could be put together to form a holistic picture.

Hugo turned to make eye contact with the anxious salarian, "Anything you'd like to say, lieutenant?"

Vurwin's eyes shifted rapidly before he spoke, "I find it difficult to trust the Shadow Broker?"

Hugo showed a confident grin upon hearing the salarian's question, "You don't need to; just trust in _me_."

* * *

A bright, bluish light filled the room, reflecting off of the metallic walls; they were shining with cleanliness close to sterility. Within was a bench upon which a full set of unused heavy armour lay, along with several weapon racks containing a variety of hi tech tools and weapons, both lethal and non-lethal. At the back of the room, a coffin like object, made to stand vertically, could be found next to a lone terminal; inside laid an aged man, his body battered from the countless battles it had been put through, the right side of his face showing signs of reconstruction and his slicked back hair was almost completely a greyish silver. The man looked lifeless, along with the rest of the stoic room; only the dull vibrations of the active cryotube could be heard.

The terminal activated and initiated the defrosting process, the whirring noise of the machine intensifying as it prepared to bring the man, who was wearing an uncharacteristically peaceful expression, back to the harsh and rigid world of the physical realm. The door of the cryotube slid open after the various processes had been taken care of with great precision; defrosting an organic was a delicate process, especially for humans, who were physiologically weaker than some other races.

Zaeed's eyes opened for the first time in years as the warmth of reality washed over him along with a splitting headache. Squinting from the light which was too bright for his functioning left eye, which had not been used for a long period of time, the gruff looking human almost fell to his knees as he stepped out of the tube before quickly steadying his stance and regaining balance. He was wearing a black body suit, which he had donned before his years long sleep. Not recognising the room he was in, he scanned over it quickly and cautiously; to his left, he found the equipment prepared for him by the bench and racks, amongst which he spotted an omnitool.

Zaeed walked over to the bench slowly while overcoming the stiffness in his body and placed the omnitool on his left arm as he observed the scars, from both battles and operations, including one he had undergone _recently_, from his perception of time. Zaeed understood the cryo process and hence was fully aware of what had happened to him, but he found it hard to accept that it _really_ was 2194 CE, as he had confirmed on his omnitool; it had been 2190 CE when he had stepped inside the freezing tube. As he was about to start browsing the extranet to catch up on any important changes that had occurred in the past few years he had been asleep, Zaeed received a call from the Shadow Broker, or as he knew her, Liara T'Soni, through the terminal beside the cryotube.

"Zaeed. It's good to see you," the young asari greeted in her trade mark manner, smiling.

"It was a comfortable nap I was havin' but it's good to be back. Where am I?"

"A hidden room I prepared for you on Omega. I had the cryotube relocated."

Turning to the terminal display, Zaeed let out a grunt, "I feel like shit, Liara."

"That's to be expected, my diagnostics are giving me healthy readings. It's probably just a side effect of the cryo; the discomfort should subside in a few hours."

"They better or I won't be of much use to you. Speakin' of which, what do you need me for?"

The Reaper War, his subsequent work for Liara in keeping the peace and the Second Krogan Rebellion had taken its toll on the silver haired human; the former Blue Suns leader was getting old and his ferocious willpower could only carry him on so far. Eventually time would get the better of him; a moment which Zaeed felt was fast approaching.

The ex-mercenary knew there was a crisis at hand; he had asked Liara to freeze him until she needed him. By doing so, he could spend his remaining time most efficiently.

"Relations between the krogans and the other species have not improved since the end of the Second Rebellion. Recently they attacked the quarians on Rannoch, who were rendered practically extinct as a result."

"Bloody hell," Zaeed muttered; in the past, this news would not have bothered the ruthless fighter, but Shepard had changed him, "It was Wreave, wasn't it?"

Liara gave a solemn nod.

"That fucker. He'll pay for that."

"All in due time, Zaeed. On top of the krogans taking over Rannoch, a genophage cure was formulated by a team of rogue STG agents. However, the agents were killed and their research facility was ransacked; the cure is now lost."

"So for now we have to find the cure?"

"Exactly."

Zaeed let out a tired sigh before turning back to the armour and weapons, "These are my welcome back presents?"

"Of sorts," the young asari grinned, "You're one of my most valuable assets, Zaeed, and a friend."

The aging human and the older yet more youthful asari were never close during their respective times with Shepard; they had never been a part of the commander's crew at the same time. However, upon meeting at the party on the Citadel in Shepard's apartment, Liara had felt that perhaps there was a caring individual hidden under the tough and cold exterior built over years and years of merciless killing. Maybe Shepard would bring that part of the mercenary out; the commander had a tendency to change people, intentionally or not.

Liara's suspicions were proven to be correct when she had found that had been doing volunteering work after donating all of his money earned as a mercenary, including that from the Collector mission, to the post-war recovery efforts, keeping only just enough credits to survive. The young asari continued to observe the ex-mercenary throughout the years, as he helped others free of charge, something he never would have even considered before meeting Shepard. As the Second Krogan Rebellion started, Liara revealed her alter ego as the Shadow Broker and offered Zaeed a position as one of her agents, which he gladly accepted.

Zaeed worked with Liara, working from the shadows to minimise damage and help resolve the conflict and over the years, they had come to respect and even care for each other, although Zaeed would never openly admit the latter.

"You're starting to become a helluva soft one, Liara." Zaeed guffawed, feigning disapproval to hide his appreciation for the asari's concern, "There's a job to be done."

Liara gave a soft smile, one Zaeed rarely saw on the young asari carrying heavy burdens, "Indeed. You will be working with a male human, Hugo Collins, along with some STG agents. They will be arriving here on Omega in approximately two standard days, time which you may use to get back into shape and become accustomed to your new equipment."

"Let's get the fun started then."

* * *

Hugo stepped out of the docking bay, donning the blue Alliance amour he had collected back on the research station. Ferkal and Vurwin were following closely, taking in the views of the scummy kingdom of criminals.

"Putrid," Vurwin remarked between loud sniffs as they walked through the blocks.

"Indeed. Something I've missed about this place," Hugo sighed in reminiscence, "Although mostly petty, there is so much adventure here."

Vurwin gave the human a look of surprise, "Sentimental attachment to Omega is rare, Collins."

"Can't help it," Hugo shrugged as they arrived at an apartment building, "I spent some of my adolescent years here. Great fun."

The message from the Shadow Broker that Hugo had received as they docked at Omega had said that their 'help' would be located within the building in front of them. As Hugo reached out to open the door, he heard the sound of breaking glass overhead.

Looking up, slightly to the right, a turian was falling out of the now broken glass window. From that height, there was no chance of survival. Hugo watched as the turian hit the ground and his plates crushed and mashed together with his flesh before being showered with glass shards. Ferkal was already pointing his weapon at the broken window while Vurwin was still taking out his assault rifle.

"It's about time you got here," a voice echoed from above, "You must be the lot that I'm helping."

A helmet could be seen peering over the edge of the building.

"And you must be the new addition to the team," Hugo called back from below.

"I'll be down in a sec," then the helmet retreated back into the building.

A minute or so passed before the front door opened, when Hugo and the two salarians were greeted by a male human wearing yellow and black armour; it was bulky and looked heavy. The dark helmet visor turned clear to reveal Zaeed's face, old and tired yet fierce and intimidating.

"Sorry 'bout that," Zaeed motioned towards the pile of bones and carapace, "Just taking care of some errands for the Broker, passing the time til you got here."

"No problem at all. Hugo Collins," the human gave his best smile emulated from the vids he had watched as a form of practice for social encounters and extended his hand out to the armoured Broker agent.

The ex-mercenary took Hugo's hand and shook roughly, "Zaeed Massani."

* * *

Upon returning to the Alusa, Fil's synthetic voice echoed through the CIC, "Collins, the Shadow Broker has identified the most probable former owner of the Alliance armour."

Hugo had conducted a DNA analysis of the insides of the armour and sent the data to the Broker before leaving the ship to collect Zaeed; the information he had was meaningless without a reference list of individuals to compare it to.

"Go on."

"The most probable former owner of the armour is Systems Alliance Major Kaiden Alenko."

In a split second upon hearing that name, Hugo's mind was working in overdrive. _The second human Spectre? Why was his armour in the research station? Undercover work or a personal motive? Development of a genophage cure is beneficial to the Alliance? They could use it as a threat but actually using it is a completely different story; countermeasures would be required. Was he captured? There wouldn't be much benefit for the rogue researchers in doing so. If willing cooperation by Alenko with the researchers is assumed, why was the armour left behind? Was he aware of the attack beforehand?_

"Anything more than just a name? Other than the obvious of course."

"Incoming call from the Shadow Broker."

"Patch it through."

After a brief pause, the VI opened the call from the Broker.

"Collins," the distorted voice greeted.

"Broker," Hugo returned the greeting, still standing.

"The armour was most likely owned by Kaiden Alenko. I'm sure you are already aware of who he is, to an extent."

"I am."

"I will transfer to you the relevant data that I am in possession of. You should receive it shortly."

The terminal by the captain's chair beeped upon receiving the data. Hugo walked over briskly and looked over the information, taking note of the severe gaps in knowledge expected to exist for the activities of a Spectre; almost all of their missions and assignments were top secret, information difficult to gather even for the Shadow Broker.

"Much appreciated."

The call ended, a heavy silence filling the room; what were they to do now?

A few moments passed before Zaeed spoke up, "So where the hell are we off to now?"

Considering the potential answers to the question Hugo had been wondering about himself, Hugo took a seat in the captain's chair, remembering when he caught a glimpse of the Krogan cruiser that had attacked them back in the base and noticing the Urdnot clan markings painted on different parts of the ship.

_Why was clan Urdnot attacking the research station? The likelihood of their involvement in the initial infiltration is very low, considering the nature of the traces left behind. Perhaps there is a connection between their hostile actions towards us and their attack on the quarians on Rannoch? Wreave may have sent his clan and allies on an aimless rampage across the galaxy, but it is highly unlikely; the research station was well hidden and the surrounding colonies were ignored by the krogan, implying an intentional and direct attack. Additional data regarding the events which transpired during the krogan invasion of Rannoch is required._

"We're about to find out," gripping the armrests on either side of this chair, Hugo called out to the VI, "Fil, get me a secure line to admiral Paesin."

"Of course. One moment."

Vurwin and Ferkal were giving each other confused looks as they tried to figure out what Hugo was calling their superior for when they were interrupted by the older salarian woman connecting to the Alusa's communications.

"Any progress, Collins?" Paesin greeted with her textbook smile.

"I _know_ you're hiding something about what happened on Rannoch when the krogans attacked," Hugo ignored the question and dove straight to the point.

Paesin's soft expression was immediately replaced by one of shock and confusion at the man's words, "How? That information is top secret! "

Hugo grinned internally while maintaining a cold gaze on his face.

_A lucky guess._

"The 'how' is irrelevant for now, Paesin. What _is _important is that you give me the whole story if you want me working at full capacity."

"I can't possibly do that. I must consult with the other admirals –"

"Fine by me. If you want to waste time while a genophage cure is in the hands of an unknown group, be my guest, but we both know you don't want that. A waste of your time is a waste of my time, and my time is wasted at the expense of galactic stability."

The salarian admiral stared into Hugo's near expressionless face through the comms systems with wide, blank eyes before sighing deeply, her head hung and shaking slowly from side to side.

"Fine. The current predicament calls for," Paesin paused, "_drastic _measures."

"Glad you saw reason," Hugo gave a wide, glaringly fake smile.

After overcoming a slight pause of hesitation, Paesin started to speak again, "As it turns out, the quarians may have repeated their mistake."

* * *

The Alusa was heading towards the Tikkun system, in which Rannoch is found; it would take approximately 50 standard hours. In the meantime Hugo had remained in his chair, contemplating and re-watching the footage of the disappearing blue box of the RANNOCH-1000, gathered by the STG, for the tenth time, struggling to find any clues as to what had happened to the supercomputer after it had been swallowed up by the mass effect field emanating from within itself. Biotic teleportation was not yet possible on a practical scale and even if it were, Hugo doubted that the quarians would have been able to design and build a machine capable of the feat using the scraps and spare parts they had available to them.

He tapped on the terminals in front of him to bring up some modelling modules. From the human's understanding of the theory, the RANNOCH-1000 would have had to interact internally with an object capable of producing strong mass effect fields. The implications of a successful teleportation by the supercomputer were potentially dangerous; a supercomputer which evolved by itself into an AI capable of manipulating mass effect fields to a sufficient degree to even attempt the teleportation may be on the loose.

The energy required to teleport an object of that size would be immense enough to only allow one instance before a standard drive core would be rendered non-functional, which Hugo assumed was the part used as the energy supply when building the supercomputer.

After pondering for a moment, Hugo started to model the most likely range of the teleportation based on the assumption that the supercomputer was powered by an internal drive core which could fit inside the 3 meter by 3 meter by 3 meter blue box. The calculations were complex, even for the hyper intelligent prodigy, to the point of near frustration, a rarity for his detached nature. It reminded him of how he felt when he had competed with the one person who would always beat him, who would always be at least one step ahead; usually it was around 20 steps.

Competitive frustration, along with curiosity and excitement, were one of the very few feelings Hugo could recognise. Companionship, romance and friends were foreign concepts to him, known only in theory and recognised as weaknesses, but a lack of interpersonal relationships had left Hugo somewhat empty throughout his life, something he recognised as 'loneliness'. Although he was not in any rush, with the raging instability of the galaxy beckoning him towards new mysteries and curiosities, ever since he had acknowledged that human relations were a vital part of mental health, even for a man as detached as he was, Hugo had been attempting to form connections with other people, but to no avail. The woman whom Hugo had been stood up by at the restaurant back on Illium before he was called in by Helia was a prime example; he thought he had been making good progress in learning and understanding human behavioural dynamics, but the woman had been somehow offended by Hugo, as were many others in the past, something that the clueless genius could never completely figure out, leading him to the conclusion that personal relationships were one of the hardest puzzles to solve that the galaxy had to offer.

A few hours had passed before Hugo had finished his model and had started to run simulations with it, the results of which had confirmed his initial suspicions; assuming that the supercomputer was indeed able to successfully teleport out of Rannoch, it only would have been able to reach a position in space located within the Tikkun system. He sent a secure, audio-only communications request through his terminal, answered in a matter of seconds.

"It has been a while, Collins," the voice on the other side was that of a male drell.

"Indeed, Kais," Hugo greeted back quickly and got straight to the point, "I need to ask you for a favour."

"What kind?" the drell sounded curious yet authoritative and in control.

"I'm just after some information."

"I'm listening."

"Did you and your people notice anything strange within the Tikkun system around eight days ago?"

"You mean when the krogans invaded Rannoch?"

"Well, I mean anything strange other than _that_."

"One incident has been recorded."

"What happened?" Hugo questioned, to which he was met with a pause of hesitation, "Kais, you _owe_ me at least this."

He received no reply for a while longer as the drell contemplated his options.

"Alright, Collins. Only this time."

"Of course."

The voice's tone shifted to one which was darker, "A space station modified and used as a rogue research facility by a few salarian scientists was found by one of our reconnaissance drones to be destroyed as a result of a mass effect field explosively emanating outwards from within the structure."

"The researchers and the nature of their work?"

"Salarians involved in synthetic body modifications."

"That's all you can give me?"

"That's all we have for _ourselves_, Collins. We haven't been able to commit resources to investigate an abandoned wreck."

_Preparing countermeasures against the krogans. _Hugo read between the lines.

"With only that level of information, I can't exactly say that your debt has been repaid," Hugo spoke with a smirk that could be heard in this voice, "Let me investigate the facility before you lot do."

Hugo knew he was asking for a lot; Kais' superiors would give him severe reprimand if they were to find out that he authorised a civilian to investigate an area of interest before their people could, opening up the risk for intentional and accidental contamination and tampering of evidence. However, Hugo also knew that Kais owed him _a lot_.

The drell gave a heavy sigh before speaking in resignation, "As you say."

* * *

As they approached the broken down research facility floating in space, Hugo peered out through the cockpit window and noticed severe structural damage which appeared to have been caused by an explosion originating from a point within the station. Gaping holes could be seen scattered throughout the walls. Using the docking platform that had remained intact, Hugo and his shore party, which now included Zaeed, entered the deteriorating structure.

With the artificial gravity systems destroyed, the team used their mag boots to keep themselves stuck to the floor surface as they moved through the floating debris. Eventually they arrived in a room in the shape of a long hall way with damaged cryo tubes and terminals that were no longer functional along each side; Hugo guessed that, from the length of the room and the layout of the remaining equipment, there would have been at least 80 cryo tubes originally present. While most of the inhabitants had been blown away into space along with their cryo tubes during the blast, 21 of them, Hugo counted, had remained, although they were now lifeless, supposedly killed by the malfunctioning tube or from exposure to a vacuum without a suit. 11 of the remaining bodies were still trapped within their cryo tubes, while the other 10 floated around freely. There was at least one individual from every known sentient race, indicating a wide variety of experiments. While differing in race, one aspect the bodies shared in common was that all of them seemed to have undergone heavy synthetic modifications; large scars were visible and physical damage the bodies had sustained from the blast revealed synthetic organs within.

"This shit makes _me_ sick," muttered Zaeed.

Hugo approached a drell body which he noticed had scars over its closed eyelids, which he lifted gently with his thumb to reveal synthetic, metallic eyeballs, which impressed Hugo.

_Technology capable of mimicking an organic eyeball had been developed?_ He thought as he let go of the eyelids and continued to move through the hall way of floating bodies, leaving the lifeless drell body with its eyes still opened, which the others in the team also ignored as they followed Hugo.

As they progressed through the rest of the facility, Hugo tried to gather as much information as possible. However, he failed to collect much meaningful data; all of the terminals were made inoperable and rendered useless and much of the physical evidence had been blown away into space. Despite this, Hugo had managed to gain some insights into the events which occurred during the krogan invasion of Rannoch; reading between the lines was a skill he had learned throughout the years. He had always found that the utilisation of flexible thinking was more effective and efficient when compared to submission as a slave of deduction.

There were no components of the structure of the research facility that the RANNOCH-1000 may have manipulated to create a biotic explosion capable of doing damage to the degree he had observed, suggesting that the supercomputer used its internal power source, the one which it had supposedly used to teleport away from Rannoch, in order to produce a powerful surge of mass effect fields. However, a biotic explosion originating from within the supercomputer would have destroyed it completely, suggesting that the supercomputer either transferred itself from its blue box to another storage device or it had merely self-terminated. Hugo doubted that the supercomputer had malfunctioned or that it had been manipulated by a separate party; it was unlikely that it would have been able to teleport to the research facility if it had, implying that the RANNOCH-1000's actions were intentional. Transferring itself to another device before causing its blue box to explode is a form of self-preservation, while destroying the facility along with simultaneous self-termination is an illogical act. Both possibilities indicated sentience.

If the RANNOCH-1000 had indeed self-terminated without transferring itself elsewhere, the research facility was a dead end, but Hugo remembered the facility in which the genophage cure was created. _Clean and efficient kills. Calm and controlled. Capable in technological manipulation. Incredible physical abilities. One individual. _

Things were getting interesting for the curious genius.


	4. Chapter 4

**Please leave a review as I'd like to improve on my writing. If I don't get any for this chapter I'm going to assume that I wrote something so terrible that it's not even worth typing a hate comment, which is entirely possible haha, and I'll scrap this story and try again. **

**Anyways, hope you enjoy! :)**

* * *

"The turian you are after has been found," the Shadow Broker's voice echoed through the Alusa's CIC.

"Excellent," Hugo was sitting at the captain's chair, "Where?"

"Etamis, within the Hawking Eta cluster."

"Odd, nothing noteworthy on that planet. Just some ancient ruins," Hugo paused before continuing, "Are you sure the information you have is accurate?"

"Of course, Collins. Remember who you are speaking to."

"Well, in that case, I'm impressed at how fast you managed to find him, or her."

_From the estimated height of the turian and the disparity between the average body structures between the two genders of their species, it was likely that the one they were after was male. _

"A male turian, mid-twenties in age, abnormally tall at a height of approximately 250 cm, visually part synthetic and is travelling with a group of krogans. The one we found matches all of these characteristics that you gave me."

"Rou," Hugo called over to the pilot, "Plot a course to Etamis."

"Already on it, Collins."

"My sources tell me that there are krogans stationed there, working with the turian," the Broker warned, "Heavily armed."

"Sure, it's a risky job. That's why they hired me," Hugo replied with a grin.

_Besides, a riskless task is a boring one. _

"What makes you so sure that this turian is the one you are after?"

The human gave a dry laugh, "Now I think it's your turn to remember who _I_ am."

* * *

"Approaching Etamis," Rou looked over her shoulder behind her from the pilots chair to face Hugo, who was standing behind her within the cockpit already dressed in his new amour that the Shadow Broker had provided, "The coordinates received from the Shadow Broker indicate that the turian is at a makeshift dig site."

"Any AA?"

"Nothing. It seems the krogan did not care to commit any resources to prepare to be on the defensive," Estum added, "Quite typical of them, really."

"Good to hear. Take us in quietly."

"Right. Stealth systems engaged."

The Alusa cruised smoothly past the orbiting krogan ships and through Etamis' thin atmosphere unnoticed under Estum's gentle hands as she guided the ship towards the coordinates, unseen by the krogans' radars. Although the planet could be said to be quite beautiful at a distance, similar to Earth in appearance as commented by Zaeed, a second look at a more intimate proximity revealed clear signs of bombardment and destruction, evidently the work of the Reapers' cyclical purges, perhaps millions of years in the past. As they continued to approach the given coordinates, their destination became clear to Hugo's naked eye through the cockpit window; the human could make out a large rocky hill with a hole dug out with a portable drill.

"Get me visuals on the site."

One of the screens to the right of the pilot lit up and showed a zoomed in view of the dig site at the press of a few buttons by Estum, giving light to some more details; _hostile_ details.

"Nine fully armed krogans just to guard the entrance of a dig site? Seems a bit excessive," pondered the pilot.

"Well, that depends on what they're looking for."

Hugo had been wondering what the turian could possibly be looking for in the ancient ruins. The Reapers should have destroyed anything worthwhile from a past civilisation when they had arrived here for the purge.

"Can you tap into their radio?"

"Sure, something like that is a child's play for me and the Alusa."

"Good. Here's what we'll do. Ping them our position and patch me into their comms so I can listen in on them."

Estum looked back at Hugo in slight confusion.

"If they become hostile, just shoot them down on my command while I take the shuttle with the ground team ashore."

"And if they don't?"

"Then we can shake hands and get them take us to the turian we are looking for," Hugo smirked, "But something tells me that they won't be too friendly."

"Understood, Collins," Estum struggled to hide a small grin herself.

"Well, I'll leave you to it then. Good luck, Rou."

"You too."

With that, Hugo left the cockpit and strode with haste through the CIC towards the elevator, taking it down to the cargo hold where Zaeed, Vurwin and Ferkal were waiting while preparing their armaments with the makeshift armoury.

"Are we set to deploy?"

"Sure, Collins. Ready to try out that fancy new amour?" Zaeed called as Hugo approached the three armoured men.

"Hopefully the situation won't call for me to rely on it too much."

The armour was dark red, medium in both strength and mobility. The helmet had a large rounded black visor that covered the entire face.

"Collins, I just pinged the krogans. Patching you into their comms now, undetected," Hugo heard the pilot's voice in his communicator.

"Alright. Let's see how they react."

A moment of static was heard before the signal cleared and Hugo could hear the voices of the krogans stationed outside of the dig site.

_"Hey. They're coming right at us!"_

_"You think its civilian?"_

_"Not sure. Too bad for them, Octavis wants to remain _uninterrupted_."_

_"Yeah no kidding. Finally get to do some killing."_

"Open fire Rou."

"Roger."

Hugo heard the Alusa's weapons fire.

_"It's a small ship. Shouldn't put up too much of a –,"_ the voice of the krogan was cut off by a loud explosion before static filled the comms.

"Well, if everyone's ready, let's head to the shuttle," Hugo looked over the three well-armed fighters, each of whom nodded and made their way towards the UD-21 Orhol.

* * *

The shore party stepped out of the shuttle after Vurwin's gentle landing; the system's central star, the Schwarzschild, was setting over the distant horizon, giving the team a spectacular sunset, a stark contrast to the scattered remains of the dead krogans surrounding them.

"Fuckers never stood a chance," Zaeed chuckled to himself, to which Ferkal also let out a quiet laugh.

"Stay focussed," Vurwin reminded sharply, "There might be more of them inside."

"No doubt," Hugo added lightly.

"There better be," Zaeed drew his assault rifle and aimed it down the entrance to the dig site.

"This is not a joking matter, human," Vurwin turned to glare at the battle hungry man.

"Who said I was joking?" Zaeed replied nonchalantly before turning to see the lieutenant's increasingly narrowing eyes, at which he gave a short sight, "Yeah yeah. Fine, I'll keep my mouth shut."

Hugo approached the gaping dark hole at the base of the rocky hill and turned on his helmet's night vision, "Night vision, people."

The three complied and followed Hugo into the dig site.

After a few minutes of walking in a straight line down the unexpectedly deep cave, Hugo heard the distant sounds of a squad of krogans approaching them.

_Probably heard the explosions outside of the cave. Footsteps indicate the presence of approximately three individuals. Direction of sound indicates the tunnel continues on in a straight line._

"Hold," Hugo whispered, "Incoming krogan squad, dead ahead. Take them down."

The squad halted immediately and took a crouching stance to stabilize their aim on the spot, as there was no cover to take inside the bare tunnel. Within a few moments, the krogan squad came into view in Vurwin's sniper scope.

"Three targets sighted, 500 meters ahead. Seems like they haven't seen us yet."

_Vurwin could take down one target, but the rest may retreat back down the tunnel and call for reinforcements. My pistol, Ferkal and Zaeed's assault rifles too inaccurate at this distance._

"Wait until they reach firing distance for the rest of the squad. Attach silencers," Hugo whispered again while placing a short cylinder at the end of the barrel of his hand gun.

For the next minute or so, Vurwin continued to relay the distance of the approaching krogans to Hugo while Zaeed and Ferkal waited in anticipation, gripping their rifles with experienced hands and aiming down the tunnel.

"A little over 100 meters, I think they're about to notice us."

"Take them down."

At that instant, Vurwin fired his muffled sniper rifle, landing a head shot on one of the krogans, whose body fell and gave out a lifeless thud. Silently lethal shots flew out of Zaeed and Ferkal's weapons a split second later, the barrage hitting the other two krogans who also fell to the ground.

"Targets down," Vurwin continued to look on through his scope.

"Good. Let's move on."

The four of them got back onto their feet and resumed their journey deeper into the tunnel, the rest of which was uneventful until they eventually heard the sound of working machines. The echoes told Hugo that it was a large room from which the sounds originated. Ahead, around a corner to the right, an ambient blue light could be seen leaking into the otherwise pitch black tunnel. Leaning up against the edge of the tunnel, Hugo slowly peered around the corner as the other three stacked up against the wall behind him. What he saw surprised him.

The turian, Octavis he assumed, was present, his extreme height resulting in a dark shadow being casted towards Hugo's direction, of which the light source was a large, silvery yet ancient looking machine emitting a soft blue light found at the centre of the dome shaped room. Octavis, unarmed, had his back to Hugo as he looked on towards the whirring machine, its size so large that it almost reached the ceiling. No other krogans could be seen in the room with him; he was alone.

Hugo gave hand gestures to his squad mates, not bothering to look back at them, signalling them to prepare to move in on his mark but to hold fire. As he waved his twice in quick succession towards the room, he moved out of cover and into the open, pointing his weapon at Octavis, who was engrossed in the machine and had yet to notice them. Or so he had thought.

"Well done, human," the voice was deep, sub-harmonic rumbling to exemplify his calm confidence, "I am impressed that you were able to get through my defences so quickly, but more so at the fact that you managed to track me down."

"Thanks, but I had some help," Hugo spared a small grin while maintaining his serious expression, "Octavis, is it? You know what I'm here for."

"Of course," the turian turned around, hands still by his side, revealing his synthetic facial features, to which Vurwin, who was now holding his pistol, gripped his weapon a little more tightly, "The genophage cure."

"Hand it over, or you know what happens," Hugo commanded.

"Oh, I know what happens, but _do you_?"

_Alone and outnumbered, yet confident; assuming the AI is controlling the body, it is not misplaced and instead the result of a series of calculations and logical processing._

"You won't give it up without a fight?" Hugo asked cautiously, "Why do you even want the cure in the first place? Why help the krogans?"

Octavis gave a genuine laugh while still maintaining his composure, "Human. I am disappointed in your abilities, although I am not surprised. Having a purely organic mind can be quite limiting."

"You haven't exactly answered the question."

The turian stared down at Hugo, who was not intimidated but rather curious, before speaking again, "I am not required to answer. You fail to realise how powerless you are, clawing around in the darkness, acting as if you have some idea of what _is_, when in reality you are merely in denial at the lack of control and understanding you have. It is beyond your comprehension."

Hugo's eyes briefly shifted their focus from the turian to the machine, of which the whirring was decreasing in volume and frequency, the blue light emitted gradually dimming along with it.

"I believe our time is up, human," Octavis declared, opening the palms of his hands and pointing them towards Hugo and his squad, while his arms still remained hanging down his side.

_Blue aura forming at his palms. The average biotic attack or barrier takes half a second of activation time. Time required for me to pull the trigger: a quarter of a second. Time required for bullet to arrive at target from this range: a tenth of a second._ _Weapon already aimed at lower chest for a non-lethal yet incapacitating shot, no time required to adjust trajectory._

Hugo was half way through the trigger pull when his vision became filled with blue and he felt a heavy force hitting his chest as his feet lifted off the ground. He felt his lungs compress as the air within them was pushed out from his mouth. The force sent him flying backwards until he hit the hard dirt wall, his body bouncing off it as and falling downwards until it hit the ground. A small crater had formed in the wall where he had impacted. Wheezing for a breath through his pained lungs, he looked around as a visual scan over the room.

Vurwin and Zaeed were still on the ground, scrambling around for their weapons, which Hugo saw had been flung away from their reach when they were hit by the biotic attack, while Ferkal was already getting up and preparing to open fire on Octavis, the machine's light and his towering figure working in tandem to create a large shadow that loomed over the four of them. During the time Hugo had taken to scan the area, the turian had already made his way towards the salarian gunnery chief before any of them could react.

The turian moved fast, even for Hugo's perception, quickly yanking on the barrel end of Ferkal's rifle before the salarian could regain a proper grip on it, simultaneously kicking him in the chest and forcing him back into the wall. Just as swiftly as he had disarmed his helpless foe, Octavis flipped the rifle around for him to use. While this occurred, Zaeed had given up on retrieving his weapon and had started a tackling motion towards him, and by the time he was ready to pull the trigger to shoot Ferkal in the face, the silver haired human had managed get close enough to him, forcing the turian to give up pulling the trigger.

Vurwin had also decided to rely on his hand to hand combat skills, while Hugo had by now gathered the strength to aim the pistol which he had managed to hold on to, towards their attacker. He was certainly brighter than them, but physically, at least in terms of endurance, it was equally certain that he was inferior, forcing him to take longer to recover from the biotic blast.

Octavis side stepped Zaeed's tackle while also ducking his head to dodge a punch from Vurwin, who was standing behind him, smoothly transitioning from his side step motion into a circular spin, adjusting his rifle's aim towards Vurwin. Hugo managed to pull the trigger, sending a lone bullet flying towards the turian's head.

Octavis had managed to see the incoming projectile, but failed to dodge it, the bullet hitting his fringe. His carapace diffused the force applied by the bullet over a wider area, causing him to topple backwards and lose his balance. However, he managed to regain his footing and performed a double back flip to increase the distance between them, raising the rifle and pointing the barrel towards Hugo's direction. By then, Hugo had managed to pull the trigger two more times, sending a pair of bullets flying towards the illusive turian. Roughly four seconds had passed since the first biotic throw; the average cool down time for any proficient soldier was approximately nine seconds, but for a skilled one, it could be cut down to half that. Seeing the two bullets land on Octavis' chest, he was thinking of ways to take advantage of the time he had just bought himself and his team before the next biotic attack was unleashed upon them, when a loud explosive noise echoed throughout the room and he caught a glimpse of a projectile whizz past him towards the turian's direction. Turning to see where it came from, he was met with the sight of a figure in black armour, supposedly a human male, standing at the entrance to the room with a weapon resembling an assault rifle firmly in his grip and aimed at Octavis. The visor had a dark tint, preventing Hugo from seeing into the helmet.

_Estum should have told me about an additional presence. Assume advanced stealth technology was employed. _

Quickly returning his attention back to Octavis, Hugo saw a large explosive flame where the turian had been standing a moment before, the heat and kinetic energy travelling towards him and gushing against his body, slightly pushing him backwards. As the smoke cleared, Hugo could see the limp body of the synthetic turian sprawled out across the floor. Then, a flash and a sharp noise filled his senses, if only for a split second.

Soon his senses returned, revealing the traces of a spent flash bang grenade nearby, his squad mates stumbling back onto their feet. However, both Octavis and the black armour clad figure were missing. Hugo sprinted to the hallway, only to catch a glimpse of a speeding vehicle, the mount of which the black figure was atop, along with the limp turian body slung across the back seat.

"Rou, hold fire. The target is incapacitated on the back of the vehicle about to exit the dig site."

"Aye aye."

Hugo and his squad started a sprint through the tunnel, running towards the light of the outside world. As they approached the exit, Estum came into the comms again, "Collins. The turian is not incapacitated."


End file.
